


The Flower Without Fragrance

by TheOneWhoStayed



Series: Camellia Blossoms [1]
Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Bella really grins and bears it in this, Carlisle is an idiot, Cursed Bella Swan, Emotional Infidelity, F/M, LISTEN THIS IS MY OTP I JUST WANTED TO HURT THEM CAUSE IM MEAN, No cheating, Themes of Curses, This whole thing is just a reference to my New Moon Rewrite, Tragedy for Tragedy's sake, Unrequited Love, Vampire Bella Swan, at the end there, big yikes, bordering on, eternal love, i guess, no beta we die like men, out of order story telling, this is really messed up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:21:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26099317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOneWhoStayed/pseuds/TheOneWhoStayed
Summary: Isabella Swan was dying of a blood disease of which there was no cure, at least, in 1814 there wasn't.Dr. Cullen brought  her books and laid  them by the flowers her father always gifted her every 3 days.She became his first born and he became the one she would  love forever.But no matter how much Bella wished for it, this was not a fairy tale.
Relationships: Carlisle Cullen/Bella Swan
Series: Camellia Blossoms [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1898770
Comments: 28
Kudos: 71





	1. The End

**Author's Note:**

> "The Camellia Blossom...is a flower without fragrance. It proclaims nothing, blooming in silence. When the blossom's petals scatter, it's quiet and tragic." -Atsushi Okubo [Soul Eater]

It was the biggest con she'd ever pulled and it was on herself.

As Bella pushed that sapphires studded silver piece into Esme's beautiful caramel colored hair and gazed into the mirror. The woman was golden eyed, the very same as Bella herself but there was a difference in them. It was stark and harsh like black paint spattered against the whitest of canvases.

Esme carried a liveliness in her that had only grown brighter and brighter everyday she'd lived with their little Coven. She was like a fine rose full of beauty, vitality, and such elegance it was no wonder Carlisle had been helpless against loving her.

Bella knew well that women like Esme attracted men like Carlisle as a moth to a flame, only in this metaphor the flame would cause the moth to be reborn into something greater, like a phoenix rising from ash.

A perfect match.

Both had suffered and at last found happiness in the embrace of one another.

And Bella couldn't do it.

She couldn't stand there and watch it happen.

"Bella... Please," Esme was protesting the use of the silver hairpiece, elegant to the last.

"It's fine," Bella forced a smile. Esme would accept it, everyone always accepted Bella's smiles because that's all she ever gave,

"If you would simply give me a moment though, I left your 'something old' with Edward and It's about time to retrieve it."

Esme nodded slowly, reluctantly allowing Bella to leave her there in the bride's room. All done up for her special day and ready to marry the man of her dreams.

Swallowing back the Venom pooling in her mouth, Bella gripped her own blue bridesmaid dress and walked out of the room with no intention of returning. It was monstrous, Bella knew, but the girl hadn't intended to leave. All month Bella had been staring at herself in the mirror, brushing her mahogany hair and attempting to envision a life where she was introduced as Carlisle and Esme's daughter.

No matter what though, Bella simply couldn't do it.

Every time she shifted it and changed the roles, Carlisle and Esme remained there, holding hands for hundreds of years with the strength of the love they had grown together in their hearts and Bella..

Bella. Couldn't. Do. It.

So instead the Vampire of 127 years walked down the hall, past the room Carlisle and Edward were readying themselves within, then simply marched out the door.

Of course, things weren't that simple.

"Where in the world are you heading? Has something failed to arrive?" Carlisle was instantly behind her and Bella whipped around to find the man who Created her.

Honey colored hair and topaz eyes which shone with beauty and truth in the face of a man she'd seen countless lives with. Days no other had seen where together they trudged across the great north laughing and running just the two of them.

It had been perfect.

But Carlisle had been lonely.

Bella had never been enough.

"I'm simply stepping out for a moment," Bella forced a smile before turning back on her heel and heading out faster, hoping he wouldn't grow wise to her plan but knowing he was the only one who could see past that fake expression she always gave.

But the haze of love and happiness might just delay his realization.

Unfortunately, Bella was wrong as just as she was about to leg it at full speed into the nearby woods a soft, familiar but kind hand caught her wrist.

Once more she looked back and found Carlisle Cullen. Standing there in his wedding suite looking for all the world like an angel of mercy as he stood there with concern etched into his handsome features,

"Isabella, if something is the matter you can tell me. Have we not always spoke plainly to one another?"

Bella roved her gaze beyond him to the church, judging it and realizing that if Edward or Esme were attempting to listen in with their Vampiric hearing, it would be useless. She'd trekked quite a distance already before Carlisle had caught her.

He always had been faster.

"I can no longer be here so I am going away," Bella informed him and he was staring at her like she was some sort of creature from the depths he had never even conceived let alone attempted to name.

"Isabella, I do not- What?" Carlisle did not let go of her wrist as the words tumbled out of him, the man shook himself,

"This is a very poor joke."

"Release me please," Bella requested and he did, as she pulled her wrist against her own body as if he hand't only cradled it softly as if she were precious,

"I am not joking. Forgive me for staying quiet so long I believed I could do this but I cannot. For your continued happiness I cannot stay."

"Why ever not?!" Carlisle huffed the words out clearly incredulous and shaken by the turn of events. Bella had always told him everything. He'd been the only ear she ever confided in. Everyone else thought she was unfeeling and dull. Perhaps she was but Carlisle listened to her boring opinions on the beauty of brown and the sedimentary layers of the earth.

He raptly smiled and added his own opinions when Bella told him how she did not like the ending of a particular novel and Carlisle even laughed when she was rude and acerbic.

"Do you not.. Are you not happy for me? That at long last I have found someone to ebb away the loneliness?"

"It is not that..." Bella trailed wishing she could cry as her eyes began to fill with Venom which would never streak across her face or fall as tears,

"I am so happy for you..."

"Do you not like Esme?" Carlisle was clearly stricken by the idea that Bella would hate his bride, that his oldest companion would really scorn his missing piece.

"She is perfect in every way. A true rose, a moon in your starless sky," Bella forced herself to say, because it was true. They would never lack for happiness and that perhaps was what ached the most.

That Carlisle was so blissfully in love.

It suited him to be so struck by wonder every time Esme entered the room, each time she spoke his soul practically lit up.

"Then why can you not stay?! You have always agreed with this lifestyle you have never shown a desire to leave and feed on Humans," Carlisle was beginning to think the worst apparently and Bella knew right then and there she would have to confess her oldest secret to him.

He would never allow her to leave otherwise and Bella was selfish enough that she could not stand the idea of him out in the world thinking her a killer.

"I do not plan to stray from our lifestyle," Bella exhaled and she knew that when she was human her throat would have been burning in misery and grief, as it was her chest felt nearly crushed by a mountain,

"I- I- I cannot watch you love her!"

Bella choked out the words but then the next were a pathetic wail, "Not when I have wished for all these years that it would be me! I had believed I could! That seeing you happy would be enough!

"But it is not! The moment you wed I shall die! I will perish! I cannot watch you love her when I have loved you all these years and hoped, prayed to God it would be me!"

The worst part of it all came then. As Carlisle stared at her in such utter and complete shock... It completed Bella's mortification as his expression proved what she had always known.

Carlisle had no clue.

"How long?" he asked, because it was clearly terrifying to him that he had broken her heart a thousand times in a thousand ways over their century together,

"How long have you carried this burden and concealed it?"

"I have loved you since you left 'Self-Control' by my Camellias," Bella whispered, and it felt like shattering the glass around her stone heart which she'd constructed for her entire existence.

Immediately, Carlisle's shoulders slumped as he came to the realization of what that meant. How long and dearly she had loved him.

That her Human heart had ceased beating and sealed him in it like a pharaoh's tomb.

"Why have you never said?" Carlisle asked so tragically that Bella almost believed he meant it. She knew better though. The question had only been asked in politeness and respect for her and their years together.

"What difference would it have made?" Bella countered, knowing the answer in her heart as deeply as she knew the crevices of the moon which had been lit up by earth shine. As she'd known her own name and his.

Carlisle remained silent then, and Bella could feel her stone heart splinter as he turned his face away in shame. Gaze towards the church where his bride was waiting.

Because he knew as well as Bella that it would have changed nothing, save for the fact that he would have started this very conversation requesting her to stay.

After all, she was his First Born and that made her special, but only the way a father contains a greater reverence for his eldest child which would inherit all things. Only in the way a man sets apart his first babe because the place in him which loved his children was initially carved for them.

His love for her could never turn to lust, his mind would never desire her carnally. If it had, there could only be shame for him, as it would be like perverting what God had arranged.

What Bella did not expect, was for Carlisle to turn his golden eyes back to her, piercingly they tied her to the earth as his soothing voice nearly begged,

"Please stay. You are my oldest companion, you have seen me weak and lost. Who else could see me as a man and understand that I am flawed as any other? Our relatives think me some paragon of self-regulation and deify my control.

"Even Edward who can see my thoughts plainly thinks me greater than any simple man. Isabella you... I am a person to you."

"That is what Esme is for," Bella reminded him softly as she began to pry the pieces of her shattered heart from her chest and tossed them to the four winds declaring,

"She will be the one you speak to from now and Esme will be your heart and the moon which guides you."

"I fear disappointing her," Carlisle confessed and it was nearly broken. Bella had seen him break, witnessed him beg and cry. Hopeless and destitute.

Esme would be the one to see him lose control though. He would love her with his heart and body and Esme would be blessed to be the woman he shed his last piece of armor with.

Bella had dreamed of that day he might come to her, eyes suddenly opened as if he'd only just realized he might love her. It had been such a foolish, childish dream. For men like Carlisle did not love girls like her.

"Then you will disappoint her," Bella shook her head and turned her back on the man she loved and lost and lost and lost,

"And she will see you are a man, just as I did when you disappointed me."

With that she ran into the woods.

Shards of her heart flying to the ends of the earth never to be whole again as she looked back twice and Carlisle did not chase her.

He would have caught her if he tried.

But he did not.

Because he had a woman to marry.


	2. The Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is still messed up but this part is cuter... TECHNICALLY YOU COULD READ MOST OF THIS AND SEE IT AS A CUTE AU.... *SIGH*'
> 
> First I torture Charlie for a WHOLE 170K and now this????

He met her when Charles and Renee Swan admitted their daughter to the care of Dr. Wood's practice.

Isabella swan was a frail girl who had fought death the majority of her life and Carlisle could see it in her very bones, every sinew of her muscles that she'd beat it off like a hero of Greek myth.

The Swans had nowhere else to go and Carlisle could only watch as his Mentor Dr. Woods informed them that their journey across the territories had practically been for naught. As there was no cure, which meant there could only be an easing of the girl's passing.

Carlisle had seen it so many times.

In his 151 inhuman years the Vampire had the opportunity to see death a myriad of times in countless ways. He'd even wished for it to come upon himself. More than any creature ever should.

Really, Isabella Swan was no special case.

She had no hidden fire or zest for life secreted in her eyes which would be a tragedy to stamp out.

Carlisle had no inkling what she would become to him.

How precious.

How dear.

How so very loved.

Those first days of her stay in the clinic were filled with silence and if his senses weren't so keen as to be able to hear her heart beating, her lungs wheezing, Carlisle may have thought she'd fled into the unknown.

By the end of the week, Dr. Woods even appeared to forget about the mousy brown headed girl with her too big eyes and rasping voice. Unlike the other patients she never complained or requested aide, more food, warmer water, colder water, another blanket for the icy night.

And in her silence Carlisle heard her practically screaming.

His yellow eyes turned to her, the girl who was silent and appeared to be content to simply lay there and die.

Only, when he looked.

Carlisle found something worth staring at.

Because Isabella Swan read the same book everyday.

Judging by the location she was at each time he came into the room and provided her medications, the girl was reading the novel over and over every two days. Clock work, as if she lingered in the same passages and perhaps always took breaks in the same scenes.

Something inside of him sparked as she placed it down every night by the bouquet of red flowers her Father brought every 3 days.

Not being a shy man, and always happy to make conversation with those relying on him, Carlisle asked as he handed her the tincture she'd been prescribed for her ails,

"What flowers are these? I have never seen or smelled anything quite like them."

Isabella looked at him as if he were an apparition and Carlisle supposed he deserved it, as the world seemed keen to leave her alone in her silence. Instead of keeping her quiet though, the girl rasped out softly,

"They are camellias. My father brings them because they are my favorite. I understand them, as they too have no fragrance."

He would have protested the second part, but his Vampiric senses likely informed him of a level of smell that humans could not register. For their scent was heady as they coated the aroma of her rather alluring blood.

"I see," he replied but she looked at him as if he did not, in fact 'see'. An opinion which Carlisle was beginning to feel that perhaps she was correct in, as her deep brown eyes stared into him like they knew more than he did.

As awkward of a beginning as that had been, it was the first of their conversations.

Carlisle could no longer bear the rather pitiful display of Isabella reading the same book and he had a suspicion that she would never ask for another one from her parents so, against all sense, he found himself laying one of his own novels next to the camellia blossoms while the girl slept.

That time, when he arrived to administer her tinctures, she was devouring the new book.

So started a rather strange dance.

She would finish the book and as soon as Carlisle realized that she was once more reading her old one, he exchanged the novel he'd donated for a different tome.

It was when he left 'Self-Control' on the table that Isabella ceased feigning sleep and asked, "Why do you leave me books Dr. Cullen? It's truly not necessary."

"I enjoy it," Carlisle replied easily and he found it was truthful, "I have read through my entire collection and sharing a book is easily more fulfilling than sharing a conversation about trivial matters.

"A persons favorite book can tell you who they are."

"Then I shall say my favorite book is our Lord's Holy word so you may not think ill of me," Isabella replied and Carlisle found himself chuckling. Genuinely entertained by this girl's strange wit.

"Name a book and will bring it," He offered and had determined in himself then and there that should she name a tome he did not own, Carlisle would purchase it.

Isabella gazed at him blearily, clearly still tired from resting as she sighed delicately, "I would not intrude on your generosity."

And proceeded to keep refusing to request another book.

It was strange.

Carlisle couldn't help but feel her a mysterious creature of silence that kept being over looked by everyone but him.

Like her flowers she claimed had no fragrance which only he could smell perfectly.

They went on and on with him bringing her books until one day Carlisle had grown a tad frustrated with her refusal to make a request of him. Perhaps it was from his need to feed, the thirst was beginning to burn in his throat, and irritation came easily in those days before his second century when his Blood Lust had not fully faded. Whatever the reason or factors, Carlisle pressed a little more aggressively that day,

"Why is it you insist on refusing my kindness of bringing you a novel you actually desire?"

Isabella's eyes were wide as they stared at him a bit, more in surpise than fear as she took a heavy breath and confessed,

"Perhaps I am simply attempting to get to know your own preferences. I am not as well read as you seem to believe, though I do wish I was.

"My true passion as a child was dancing."

"And you stopped when you fell ill?" Carlisle felt his irritation fade as he scolded himself for acting so brusquely with a girl who couldn't be more than 17.

"My lessons ceased because I was horrid. Perhaps I was diagnosed but a week later, but I am sure it had no bearing on my lack of skill."

He could see it then..

Suddenly like dawn breaking over the mountains. A girl who had once asked for something she did not truly need and had been punished cruelly by the powers that be to die slowly. Painfully.

It was enough to scare the faith out of any child.

All he could do was keep bringing her books.

And Carlisle's heart sinned.

Because as he stared into the fire in his hearth, one which he set only so his neighbors did not grow suspicious, Carlisle recalled a very horrific thing he'd once fancied.

To Create for himself a companion.

In the early, loneliest of years, Carlisle had considered it like a distant fantasy. Never had he considered a young girl. In his mind it was always a younger man to mentor, perhaps even call brother as they traveled. A friend and confidant.

But Isabella spoke to him of books and devoured his library like nothing he'd ever seen before. She was nearly perfectly suited to be a young niece or daughter.... A companion who appreciated the written works and stories penned from the Human soul.

Carlisle put the fire out that night and prayed to God for the sin in his mind, for thought led to action, and it would be cruel to curse a poor child to such a life as his own. Even if he was striving for holiness, there was no way of knowing that she would too.

That she wouldn't turn away from the difficult path he'd chosen from himself.

So, Carlisle put it from his mind and continued bringing her books and Isabella continued to read them.

It happened when he brought her 'Sense and Sensibility' by A Lady.

Isabella took much longer to read the particular 3 volume novel, and Carlisle had thought it was peculiar. He even considered that she simply did not enjoy it.

Then, in the evening when he came to her in order to deliver her medicines he found her still laying there pale and shaking with a rattle in her lungs and he knew.

Isabella would not survive the night.

Slowly, the Vampire pressed the decanter to the girl's lips and Isabella sipped it down weakly. As Carlisle wiped her lips free of any stray dribbling she turned her wide brown eyes on to him and whispered so very fragile,

"You must tell me how the novel ends.... Dr. Cullen. You must tell me that Colonel Brandon marries Eleanor, for they are well suited in temperament and would have very happy days."

Oh how he wished to lie to her, to tell her that indeed that was how it ended. For Isabella had hated that 'Mansfield Park' had not ended with Fanny marrying Tom. She had such peculiar notions on love. As the only match from A Lady's books that Isabella approved of was Mr. Darcy and Miss Bennett.

He could not lie though.

For he knew when she died, Isabella would go to heaven and know it. So Carlisle took a breath he did not need and accidentally broke her heart for the first time,

"He does not. No, Colonel Brandon weds Miss Marianne. They are well suited though, for she is lively and he such a solitary lonely creature that they would live happily all their days."

"So a man like that, can only truly be happy with liveliness and beauty above even conversation on shared interests?"

"Love is strange. I do believe though, that had they all been truly people, it would have ended the same."

Isabella stared at him.

Long and hard and as Carlisle rose to depart from her since she was clearly tired from speaking so much. With startling strength Isabella suddenly laid hold of the trim of his coat as she wheezed out,

"Wait. Carlisle please."

He froze at that.

For she had never called him so familiarly and he had never dared to use her christian name either. Isabella clearly was desperately pleading as only dying girl could.

And what she said next would shake him to the end of his days.

As the girl who was silent and never requested a single thing pleaded, "Please save me. I know it is not Godly but I ask you make me like you."

It was horrifying to be so known.

Later.

Oh, so much later Carlisle would get a similar request from a Woman who was such a force of nature during her battle with Influenza that it almost seemed strange that she would mirror Isabella's request so perfectly regarding her son Edward.

But in that moment Carlisle could only reply in quiet, but scolding tones,

"I could not reconcile my conscience or control to cause another to enter this absolutely cursed existence.

"There is no hell worth this life Miss Swan for it is no way to live and there is nothing more wretched."

Then, she said the words with such magic they had cause to change his mind, "Even more wretched than to have been dying since the age of 7?"

If he could cry, Carlisle would have.

He stole her into the night.

The girl who had only ever asked for 2 things in her life.

Once had cursed her to death...

And the second? Oh, Carlisle had thought her death at the hands of his Venom would steal away whatever black omen hovered near.

He had thought himself successful for they were so happy. Isabella was so different than the Newborns he had known or heard of. So even tempered and controlled. Her gift a Shield which could never hurt another, only keep their Coven of two safe.

So he'd foolishly believed her second life had tossed away that horrific spell which had caused her such suffering.

But it was not to be.

And he would thrash and scream at God. Beg the lord for mercy on his very own soul. For Isabella did not deserve the hateful burdens she'd been given.

She was such a golden-hearted girl.

Yet she had asked to be given Immortality and she had once again paid the price for being given her request.

When she was gone.

Carlisle would hold Esme's hand and stare at where it was linked with his. And he would love his wife...

Oh how he loved his wife.

But part of him wondered what his life would have been if he'd not been a coward that evening by the hearth. If he had allowed himself to be weak and selfish.

And had given Isabella immortality freely without having forced her to ask.

It was enough to torment him for a very long time.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey... THIS IS REAL MESSED UP IM SORRY???

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Silent and Evergreen](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26147836) by [TheOneWhoStayed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOneWhoStayed/pseuds/TheOneWhoStayed)




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